Causality and Crime: In science as in genre storytelling, the thrill of the unexpected can only come with reference to (and in confounding) some preexisting norm.

In his final book, Perplexing Plots, the late David Bordwell wrote: It’s not accidental that mystery stories are drawn to tricky shufflings of viewpoint or chronology. A plotline built on a detective’s present-time inquiry into past events helps us understand … Continue reading →